Arts & Entertainment

Best Artist Houston 2011 - Joe Mancuso

Readers' Choice: Readers' Choice: Dandee Warhol

Neither trendy nor gimmicky, Joe Mancuso consistently produces solid, stunning work. Floral forms are his stock in trade — a red flag in the case of a lesser artist. But instead of making hokey or insipidly decorative work, Mancuso makes flowery paintings and wall-based constructions with poetry and elegance. From attenuated linear flower sculptures made with white-painted sticks, to lushly colored encaustic paintings, to large, flat blooms made from wooden petals, the artist is endlessly inventive. Mancuso's work is a lesson to those of us who have rolled our eyes at the thought of yet another flower painting.